Art of Supply

"We are on borrowed time." - Army Major General John Ferrari
On July 20th, President Trump signed an executive order making it dramatically harder for defense contractors to buy critical materials from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Seven days later, the U.S. Army handed Ford and GM prototype contracts to build a new heavy infantry squad vehicle on the theory that Detroit can build trucks faster and cheaper than the traditional defense industrial base.
Nobody has explained how the new restrictions and speed expectations are supposed to work at the same time.
In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner covers:
- What the U.S. Army asked Ford and GM for and what the new sourcing rules now forbid them from buying to build it
- Why a bomber plant outside Ypsilanti is the most useful data point in this story, and why the lesson everyone takes from it is backwards
- The second rulebook already two years into the same experiment that might give us an early look at what to expect here
 
Links:
Kelly Barner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-barner-6884443/ 
Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/art-of-supply-6895142546301960193 
Art of Supply on AOP: http://www.artofsupply.com 
Subscribe to the Art of Procurement Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe

"When the government starts collecting money as a tax, they don't normally give it back." — Curtis Spencer, CEO, IMS Worldwide
For most of the last sixty years, the average U.S. tariff rate was two and a half percent. Duty was a rounding error, and import networks got designed accordingly. 
Curtis Spencer, CEO of IMS Worldwide, says the floor is now 20 percent, and plenty of importers are still treating that like weather that will pass.
He has spent more than four decades in foreign-trade zones. When he started, the United States had twelve of them. Customs is about to issue number 302.
In this episode of Art of Supply, Kelly Barner and Curtis Spencer discuss:
- Why the business case for an FTZ went from 2- or 3-to-1 to 10-to-1 without the paperwork getting any harder
-  What "substantial transformation" means now that customs is chasing country of origin into second- and third-tier suppliers
-  The 1 percent of cases where a bonded warehouse beats a zone, and how to tell whether you are in it
Links:
Curtis Spencer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/curtis-spencer-0a553010/ 
Kelly Barner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-barner-6884443/ 
Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/art-of-supply-6895142546301960193 
Art of Supply on AOP: http://www.artofsupply.com 
Subscribe to the Art of Procurement Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe

"C.H. Robinson does not employ drivers." - C.H. Robinson Chief Legal Officer Dorothy Capers
This May, two courts drew a new line for freight brokerage liability. The U.S. Supreme Court stripped brokers of a federal defense they had leaned on for years. The Texas Supreme Court turned around and told Home Depot it wasn't liable for a fatal crash involving a carrier hauling its freight.
Two companies, both a step removed from the truck. Opposite outcomes. The difference came down to control.
And then, in July, a separate jury found that C.H. Robinson might be responsible for the actions of a driver that did not work for them, but a carrier they hired.
In this episode of Art of Supply, Kelly Barner covers:
- Why a jury decided the driver was C.H. Robinson's "borrowed employee," and how that turned 23% of the blame into 68% of the bill
- What protected Home Depot, and how fast that protection disappears
-  Why the industry's response could pull carriers out of the market you buy from, concentrating volume and raising prices
Links:
Kelly Barner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-barner-6884443/ 
Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/art-of-supply-6895142546301960193 
Art of Supply on AOP: http://www.artofsupply.com 
Subscribe to the Art of Procurement Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe

"You know, Robert, I have no expectation to ever be happy at work. I just hope to be a little less miserable." 
That's the line from a restaurant server that Robert Martichenko, board chair of TrailPath Workplace Solutions and founder of the lean consultancy LeanCore, can't shake. 
Operational supply chain roles aren't easy, but that doesn't mean it isn't possible for people to find dignity in their work. Hoping to be less miserable one day at a time does little for individual frontline workers, and it does even less for the company that employs them and the customers they serve.
In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Robert and Kelly Barner dig into what dignity means in the workplace, and why it is not the same thing as respect:
- Why "respect for people" is the wrong frame, and what dignity actually requires
- The four states TrailPath's research finds people in at work — and why nearly half of most workforces are declining or surviving, not growing or thriving
- What the second law of thermodynamics has to do with your supply chain, and why chasing unit cost quietly cost procurement its relationships
 
Links:
Robert Martichenko on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertmartichenko/ 
Kelly Barner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-barner-6884443/ 
Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/art-of-supply-6895142546301960193 
Art of Supply on AOP: http://www.artofsupply.com 
Subscribe to the Art of Procurement Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe

In December of 2025, a $285,000 Windrose Technology electric semi-truck went missing. It still has not been found. 
Reportedly, two mechanics who kept it running, Travis Waite and Harold Keller, left Windrose Technology owed a combined $91,000 in back wages, and (according to the company) are holding the truck until they are paid.
That's not the strangest thing about Windrose Technology. It's just the most dramatic.
Windrose is a Chinese-founded, Belgium-headquartered electric truck startup. It was founded in 2022 by Wen Han, a 36-year-old Stanford MBA and all-around colorful character. 
By most independent accounts, the truck itself is good, but that does little to explain the public disputes with former employees. 
Is this a well-engineered truck buried under a chaotic company with an eccentric founder or a company whose chaos is a preview of what may happen when production has to scale?
In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner covers:
- Why a $285,000 electric truck is currently sitting somewhere nobody at Windrose can find, and why the two guys who allegedly know where it is aren't telling
- How a truck built in China ended up with a VIN that says it was made in Georgia, and what that suggests about trucking safety compliance's dependence on the honor system
- Why Nikola's pardoned, convicted founder made a lowball offer for the company, and why that story gets a lot more complicated once you see the actual trucks Windrose has on the road in Texas and Chile
 
Links:
Troubling Times for Electric Trucking: https://artofprocurement.com/blog/supply-troubling-times-for-electric-trucking 
Why is nobody talking about China's new supply chain regulations?: https://artofprocurement.com/blog/supply-why-is-nobody-talking-about-chinas-new-supply-chain-regulations 
Kelly Barner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-barner-6884443/ 
Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/art-of-supply-6895142546301960193 
Art of Supply on AOP: http://www.artofsupply.com 
Subscribe to the Art of Procurement Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe